Chapter 14
Around the time that General Lord Gort was eating his lunch, D Company, 1st Battalion, the King's Own Yorkshire Rangers, finally reached BEF Headquarters. It was not, as Captain Barclay had assumed, in Arras itself, but centred around a chateau in the small village of Habarcq, some seven miles to the west.
They had learned as much on entering the city where, in the town hall, they had found the headquarters of the town's garrison. A Welsh Guardsman had redirected them, having confessed he had no idea where 13th Brigade were, or 5th Division, and least of all the 1st Battalion, the Yorkshire Rangers. Captain Barclay had cursed irritably, but Lieutenant Peploe, who had woken as the truck rumbled over the broad cobbles of the Grande Place, had been glad of the brief detour into the town. Despite a splitting headache and light-headed- ness, he had been sufficiently compos mentis to wonder at the reconstructed beauty of an ancient town that he had seen before only in a selection of picture postcards taken soon after the last war - which his mother had brought back after a visit to find his uncle George's grave. He remembered them welclass="underline" the squares of broken buildings, the piles of rubble and, not least, the skeletal town hall and its damaged belfry. Now, however, it was as though the postcards had depicted a lie. Arras had emerged, phoenixlike, from the wreckage, as splendid and opulent as it must have been a hundred or more years before.
Peploe followed Captain Barclay and Lieutenant Bourne-Arton unsteadily through some impressively ornate iron gates to the side of the chateau, then along a gravel pathway to the main entrance of the white-stone building. The place seemed a hive of activity. Doors opened and closed, staff officers hurrying to and fro with an air of grave intent. Phones rang, typewriters clacked, orders were barked. The three men were told to wait in the hall and did so in silence, watching the comings and goings until, after about a quarter of an hour, Captain Barclay stood up and began to pace.
'Now look here,' he said eventually, accosting a pale subaltern, 'how much longer are we going to have to wait? We've got an injured pilot who needs proper medical care and we need to know where we can find the rest of our battalion. Damn it, surely someone here can point us in the right direction.'
'What unit are you, sir?' asked the subaltern.
Barclay sighed. 'D Company, First Battalion, King's Own Yorkshire Rangers.'
'All right,' said the subaltern. 'I'll send an MO.'
'And what about the rest of First Battalion?' said Barclay, his mounting frustration showing in his tone.
'Just a moment, sir,' said the subaltern, and disappeared.
'For God's sake,' muttered Barclay.
It was a further twenty minutes before the medical officer arrived, apologizing for keeping them waiting.
'Take the MO to Lyell, will you, Lieutenant?' said Barclay, to Bourne-Arton.
'Right away, sir.' Bourne-Arton led the doctor outside to the trucks.
'Let's hope that's the last we've seen of him,' muttered Barclay.
'Your brother-in-law, you mean, sir?' said Peploe.
'Yes. Bloody pain in the arse. Wish I'd left him in that damned field. The CSM was right.'
'You couldn't have left him there, sir.'
Barclay tapped a foot on the stone floor. 'Hm. Did it for my sister, not for him. Put men's lives at risk. Held everything up.' He began to knead his hands together. 'I put my family before the needs of the men and what thanks did I get? None.'
'I think you're being a bit hard on yourself, sir,' said Peploe. 'After all, we've made it here in one piece.'
Barclay said nothing, instead pacing the hall, his boots clicking on the bare stone floor. Peploe wished he would stop. His head throbbed and pulses of pain coursed down his neck. What he needed was quiet, not the frenetic pacings of his OC.
At the point when he thought he could bear it no longer, a tall, slim man in his late thirties, with an immaculately groomed appearance, trotted down the main staircase and said, 'Sorry to keep you, gentlemen.' He held out a hand to Barclay. 'Lieutenant-Colonel Rainsby. Do follow me.'
He led them back up the stairs, along a short corridor and into a room with a large window. Peploe peered out and saw their German trucks parked beneath the horse- chestnuts on the far side of the road. The men were chatting and smoking, others making the most of the pause to snatch some sleep. Beyond, the avenue of trees continued, sloping down through undulating lush pasture.
Barclay cleared his throat and Peploe turned to the half-colonel standing in front of them behind a makeshift desk.
Waving them towards two mismatching chairs, Rainsby offered cigarettes, then sat down behind his desk. 'Sorry to keep you.' He smiled genially. 'As you can see, it's pretty busy here - Jerry's probing not far to the south and it may be that we have to ship out at any moment.'
'Surely not, sir,' said Barclay, startled.
Rainsby steepled his fingers. 'Hopefully not. One of the problems is that the picture is so confused. But Cambrai has fallen and the enemy has now punched a wedge of about twenty-five miles between us here in the north and the French forces to the south.'
'Surely some kind of pincer movement is what's needed,' put in Peploe. 'A joint counter-attack from north and south.'
Rainsby smiled. 'Exactly, and that's precisely what we're hoping to do. This place is still home to GHQ, but also Frankforce, created by the C-in-C as of this morning under Major-General Franklyn - the best part of two divisions, plus tanks from First RTR and various other units. I'm GS03 Operations - planning tomorrow's little show.' He paused. 'We've been admiring your haul of German trucks.'
'We're trying to find the rest of our battalion, sir,' said
Barclay. 'We lost them as we pulled back from the Brussels-Charleroi canal. We had a bit of a ding-dong with the enemy, which held up our retreat rather. By the time we'd forced them back, the rest of the battalion had already moved out.'
Lieutenant Peploe smiled to himself.
Rainsby raised a hand - say no more - and unfolded a map. 'Easily done,' he said, 'and you're hardly the only ones to have become separated from their units.' He put down the map and picked up another sheet of paper. 'Yorkshire Rangers, Yorkshire Rangers,' he mumbled, running his hand down the page. 'Yes, here we are. Thirteenth Brigade have been ordered to the Scarpe. Not so very far from here, actually. They're on their way there now. They're to hold the line at Vitry-en-Artois.'
'That's excellent news, sir, thank you,' said Barclay, pushing back his chair.
Rainsby chuckled. 'Not so fast, Barclay. I'm afraid you're not going to rejoin them just yet.'
'Why ever not, sir?'
'Because tomorrow we'll be launching a counter-attack west and south of Arras. Enemy panzers are now pressing to the south. Our task is to push them back. Fifth Div are going to stay put on the Scarpe, but the main attack will come from Fiftieth Div, plus tanks of First RTR.'
'Then surely we should head to Vitry-on-whatever-it- was, sir.'
'The thing is, Barclay, the job on the Scarpe is mostly static, but you chaps have turned up with your four very decent trucks. We could, of course, simply take them from you, but I rather think it would be better to attach you to the 151st Brigade for this operation. We want our infantry to be able to keep up with the tanks, you see.'